Zillow is seared into our brains as the go-to website for finding home prices (and snooping on the value of our friends’ real estate portfolios).
In 2018, the $22B technology firm launched a completely new business line: Zillow Offers, a home buying and selling platform (AKA iBuying).
It saw strong growth for years, accounting for more than half of its $3.3B of revenue in 2020.
Why? Per The Wall Street Journal, the company is being hit on both the demand and supply side:
One analyst tells WSJ that Zillow may have over-purchased homes.
… because the company has to put the homes on its balance sheet. Even with the pause, Zillow has 3k+ homes (valued at ~$1.2B) to unload.
The change comes a few weeks after Zillow came under fire over a viral TikTok video accusing it of buying up blocks of homes and manipulating home prices.
To add insult to injury, its main competitor -- Opendoor -- says its iBuying business is trucking along with 8.2k new home purchases expected in Q3 2021.
As long as nothing happens to the “Zillow Gone Wild” Instagram account, we’re cool.
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